


Aftermath

by Sophia_Bee



Series: Game of Thrones [4]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Canon Related, F/M, I Am Shit WIth Tags, I Will Go Down With This Ship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-28 12:22:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18756355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sophia_Bee/pseuds/Sophia_Bee
Summary: Jaime realizes he cannot stay in Winterfell and cannot stay with Brienne.





	Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> Since the fandom is quite tender at the moment, a couple warnings: I'm very comfortable with tragedy; this is not fixing any god damn thing. 
> 
> This fic, as always, is Leafeylocket approved. Please feel free to leave a comment because I love comments. xoxo

He is leaving. 

Jaime stares at the fire. It’s not really a fire anymore but a glowing pile of embers that barely sends any warmth into the room, letting the cold of the north seep into every crack and crevice. No matter how much wood Brienne heaps on the hearth, it seems every morning they wake to the kind of chill that makes Jaime’s bones ache. It seems that he cannot escape the cold that permeates everything here. 

Winterfell feels strange to him. It’s a place that the darkness never seems to leave, everything cast in blues and grays even in the brightness of midday. The bleakness makes him restless, makes him long for the brightness of King’s Landing. Still, he has stayed. Despite the awful cold, the dreary people, the days so short of sunlight. He has stayed. For the nights were long and he was greedy, unable to get enough of how she trembled in his arms. He had lied to himself, told himself that this was okay, that he was enough, that this could be his life. 

He is leaving. 

He had know it the moment Sansa turned to him, her eyes flashing with anger, her voice colder than any chill the Night King could bring.

“I always wanted to be there when they execute your sister….”

He had known. 

Cersei will die. 

His dear, hateful sister is one who will leave a mark on this world before she leaves it, a wound so deep it will echo through generations. She will let dragon fire envelop more innocent lives than the mad king had ever envisioned. She will kill thousands. His sister. His beautiful sister whose heart was black with cruelty, yet when Jaime thought of her dead, his chest clenched, his throat closed up. Sansa’s words had struck him harder than a sword and he remembered what Tyrion said, a truth Jaime has thought he could ignore. He was not Cersei’s fool. He loved her. He still did. A sort of love that festered, an infection that needed to be cut out. Yet he never truly knew how. 

He is leaving.

Jaime had been waiting for her when she walked into their room, her shoulders relaxing at the sight of him, her whole body easing in a way that made Jaime feel nervous. It was too familiar, and sometimes when she looked at him in a certain way, as if he was her everything, all Jaime wanted to do was go to her, sink into her arms and plead with her to stop. He wanted to tell her the truth, that he could never be enough, to fall to his knees and beg her forgiveness for this farce. He had watched with careful eyes, sitting in the chair by the fire, the same one he sits on now, his gaze followed her fingers as she worked the fastenings on her armor, watching the way her fingers moved.

“You could help,” Brienne had said, glancing up at him, her voice mildly annoyed but with a small smile on her face, as if nothing had changed. 

Jaime had stood, feeling the stiffness in his knees that seemed to be there more often than not these days, the way his side still ached from too many hits, the faint throb in his still-healing elbow. Her eyes had watched him as he walked towards her, waiting for a jab, a sarcastic quip, for him to tell her that she could go call her squire, for had she forgotten HE was a knight too. Jaime said nothing. There was nothing left to say. He had only looked at her, his eyes wandering about her face, taking in the way her hair curled slightly at the nape of her neck, the lines around the edges of her eyes from too many times squinting into the sunlight, the barely visible bruise on her brow that was no longer blooming yellow, a fading testament to what they had been through. He had memorized her. Her hand slowly dropped from the fastening on her armor and her mouth opened slightly, as if to ask a question, and Jaime knew she would ask what was wrong. So Jaime had kissed her, trying to ignore the ache deep in his chest. 

Finally he found the words. They were not the words he wanted to say but the only words he had left. What he wanted to say was that she…Ser Brienne of Tarth...no longer a maid, was beautiful, staring at him, lit by firelight. That she was good. That he was not. That he was undeserving. That this would not last because one day she would find out who he really was. Instead he had whispered against her mouth...

“Do you want to fuck?”

Brienne had flinched a little at his bawdiness and her breathing hitched. Jaime watched carefully as her eyes darkened with lust, her mouth quirked slightly, and he knew he had never seen someone more beautiful. 

Cersei has nothing on you, he had thought, but everything on me. 

“Yes.” 

Her voice was a whisper and it was all he needed. He crushed his mouth to hers with a desperation he could only hope she would interpret as passion and not regret. 

He is leaving. 

He had fucked her. Her armor lay abandoned on the floor as he danced her towards the bed. The fire had been ignored as he buried his face in the crook of her neck, breathing in her scent. He had had held her against him, gripping her so hard his fingers might leave marks, and silently prayed to the Seven that she never noticed that his tears had wet her skin. She had looked at him, a question on her face that he knew he could not answer. He stared back, searched her eyes for something that might let him go and all he saw was love - pure and strong. When they were done, shaking and broken in each other’s arms, she had rolled off him, curled against his side, tucked her head into his chest, and entwined her fingers with his. He felt her body slowly relax, the muscles in her legs twitching slightly, her heaviness the kind that comes with sleep. It was only then he whispered the truth. 

“I love you.” 

His cheeks were wet with tears. 

There was a time when he would have torn apart the world for Cersei. Now he was about to tear apart just one woman, and it felt like so much more. 

He is leaving. 

He had almost fallen asleep in Brienne’s arms. His lids had grown heavy, his muscles languid. His mind had started to wander, and the part of him that sometimes whispered that he _did_ deserve this murmured that he might stay. He might be allowed to keep this thing; the realest thing he had ever had. He could simply close his eyes and let sleep take him, wake to the crack of another log being thrown on the fire, Brienne dressing in the middle of the room, glancing at him with such care it would make him ache. He might lay in their bed, watching her; she might tease him about his hate of the cold; he might tell her she should come back to bed, that the Lady of Winterfell could wait. He might do that tomorrow and the next day, and the day after that, until one day he would realize they had grown old together. 

Instead Jaime had stared at the ceiling, watched the light from the fire grow dimmer and dimmer until finally he had carefully, gently untangled himself from her unconscious embrace. He sat on the edge for a long while, watching her sleep. He longed to reach out a trembling finger to trace her lips. He watched the way her nostrils flared slightly with every intake of breath. He memorized how her pale lashes lay on her cheek. Finally he had stood and dressed. 

He is leaving. 

She sleeps still, sprawled under a pile of furs on the bed they have shared for almost a fortnight, and if Jaime listens carefully he can hear the even rhythm of her breathing, a soft sound punctuated by the occasional pop from the dying fire. He should add more wood, should keep it from going out, and his chest clenches as he thinks of his Brienne waking to the cold of the north. Still, he does not want to wake her, to see her sit up with a question on her face when he knows there are no easy answers. He squeezes his eyes shut, tries to push back what he knows comes next: a great warrior woman broken by something other than battle. Brienne is strong. She has faced more threat than a broken heart. She will survive. She will never know that loving him, was the greatest danger she had ever faced. 

He is leaving. 

~fin~


End file.
